The Byzantine Empire: An Introduction

[Nikoz78]

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ABOVE: Constantine XI Palaiologos - The last Byzantine Emperor, seen here on the walls looking down upon the invading Ottoman Turks, heroically died defending Constantinople.

The Last Emperor

Five and a half centuries ago, on Tuesday, 29 May 1453, a Turkish army stormed and captured Constantinople after laying siege to the city for six harrowing weeks. The last Byzantine Emperor of Constantinople died in desperate fighting near the city walls. Constantine Palaiologos had already told his friends and advisors that he had no wish to survive the conquest of his capital city: a loss which marked the end of a civilization which had endured for well over a thousand years.

Known to history as Byzantium, this civilization was in fact the eastern, Greek half of the Roman Empire that continued the legitimate, unbroken line of Roman Emperors all the way back to the beginnings.

The Empire of New Rome

The use of the phrase 'Roman Empire' is likely to conjure up images of white marble columns, laurel wreaths and pagan temples, Anthony and Cleopatra or, perhaps, I Claudius. We are used to thinking of that Roman world as Western European and Latin speaking and, as any number of books or CD-Rom encyclopaedia's will tell you, that world came to an official end in 476AD with the deposition of the last Emperor in the West.

In fact by the four hundreds, the Roman Empire's most important territory existed in the eastern Mediterranean. Centered upon Constantinople this half of the Empire survived the fall of the West to forge a distinct identity. Greek speaking and Orthodox Christian, citizens of this Empire continued to call themselves Romaioi or "Romans" although later historians identify their civilization as Byzantium, after the original name of Constantinople.

Constantinople: Queen of Cities

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Constantinople itself tended to overawe visitors from other lands. Protected by a triple line of fortifications, the city's population grew to more than half a million people, considerably larger than all other major European urban centers combined.

Formally established in 330AD, Constantinople possessed at various times piped water supply and sewage system, hospitals with surgical, maternity and psychiatric wards, old peoples' homes and public baths. Constantinople's workshops and markets produced a variety of prestige and luxury goods, including silks, perfumes and jewelery, whilst the City's trade routes extended as far as China, North Africa and Scandinavia.

The City's focal point, the Great Church of Hagia Sophia, built between 532 and 537, stands today as a monument to faith and engineering skill. Crowned by a shallow dome suspended 56 meters high, Hagia Sophia is in certain respects a scale model of the Byzantine universe: a vast and mysterious inner space which demands humility and a sense of wonder.

Between East and West: The Medieval Superpower

Able to play the role of a superpower for over seven hundred years, Byzantium retained a level of cultural and social refinement far in advance of anything else in medieval Europe.

Byzantium was able to maintain a literate population, a well organized central government, and a monetary economy. The Byzantine gold coin, the Nomisma, was the international currency of its day; recognized from India to Spain and trusted for its stability.

Byzantine diplomatic and cultural influence spread across south eastern Europe, to Italy, to Russia and also to the Middle East. The Byzantines' diplomatic skill, and a preference for avoiding full scale warfare wherever possible, earned them a reputation in Western Europe as "limp wristed double dealers," to be scorned in preference for the supposed simplicity and moral superiority of the feudal west.

This difference in approach was drastically exposed when the two competing sister civilizations of medieval Europe; the Latin speaking Catholic west, and Byzantium, the Greek speaking Orthodox east, came into violent face to face contact during the Crusades.

Despite a constant level of conflict with their Arab and Turkish neighbors, the Byzantines had never fully developed the concept of holy war. Byzantine attitudes were incomprehensible to the Crusaders, who were resentful of Byzantine cultural superiority. In return, the Byzantines treated most westerners with condescension and failed to fully appreciate the threat they posed to Byzantium.

Decline and Fall

Finally, in 1204, Byzantium's wealth proved an irresistible lure to a large Crusading army (4th Crusade) diverted from its original objective in Egypt. These soldiers of Christ attacked and partially destroyed Constantinople, the pre eminent city of the Christian world. Massive numbers of books, irreplaceable art works and holy relics were destroyed or stolen by the Crusaders, who congratulated themselves upon having taught the Greeks a "lesson."

Constantinople never recovered from the shock of the Crusaders' attack and the Byzantine government found itself unable to counter a growing threat from the Ottoman Turks.

The Turks were based in Asia Minor, but by the 1300s had crossed over into eastern Europe. Confident and dynamic, the Ottomans soon controlled large sections of south eastern Europe and had reduced Byzantine control to the Peloponnese, in Greece, and Constantinople itself.

By 1453 Constantinople's population had shrunk to a fraction of its former size and much of the city lay in ruins. An Ottoman army of more than 80,000 men finally overwhelmed the city's defenders and began Constantinople's immediate conversion to a Turkish city. Hagia Sophia became a mosque, and remained so until another conversion to a museum in the 1930s. Inspired by Hagia Sophia, Turkish Sultans adorned their new capital with new mosques.

The Byzantine Inheritance

The rest of Europe proceeded to forget about Byzantium. Even today the Byzantine role in maintaining an unbroken line of civilization throughout Europe's "dark ages" is minimized: a legacy of 18th and 19th Century (Western) historians who treated Byzantium as "pale" and "unworthy reflection" of Imperial Rome.

In fact a huge and until recently unrecognized cultural debt is owed to Byzantium for its role in preserving the legacy of Classical Greece; which in turn contributed to the Italian Renaissance and the cultural and scientific development of modern Europe.

But the Byzantine inheritance also stands on its own terms, particularly in the fields of law, diplomacy, historiography, architecture, religion and, especially, in art. Abstract and intense, Byzantine religious art closely reflects the Byzantine self image: spiritual, melancholic and compassionate.